Marine Debris
Human-derived trash, mostly in the form of micro and macro plastics, can cause major damage across all marine ecosystems.
Figure App.C.4.14.. A graph showing the likelihood of encountering marine debris from 1999 - 2007.
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Marine debris estimates modeled along the mainland southern California coast based on debris measured by the National Marine Debris Monitoring Program. Marine debris was relatively constant across the last five years of this time series (1999-2007) and within historic levels. Data source: Ribic et al. 2012; Figure: K. Andrews/NOAA
Figure App.C.4.15.. A figure showing the percentage of sampling stations with plastic debris across three sampling years.
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Variation over time in percentage of stations from winter CalCOFI cruises with plastic micro-debris. Micro-debris was present in more than 50 percent of samples at each time period. Figure: Gilfillan et al. 2009
Figure App.C.4.16.. A map showing the distribution, concentration, and characteristics of plastic micro-debris in net samples from the CalCOFI region from winter cruises across three sampling years.